


The one that dragged you in

by Trojie



Series: Stories that aren't about cats [10]
Category: RocknRolla (2008)
Genre: Hospitals, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 00:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/668432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which everyone tells One Two he's an idiot. Not that he hasn't worked that out for himself, finally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The one that dragged you in

**Author's Note:**

> Made possible by the glorious Immoral-Crow, who pointed out that I should probably have actually SHOWN THE PIVOTAL SCENE. And thus made it happen.

It has not escaped One Two that sometimes he needs a kick in the head to see what's in front of him. Eight hours ago, he was in the middle of a perfectly normal job that he was pissed off about. Seven hours ago, he was in an ambulance. 

Somewhere in between those two things, he got a kick in the head.

***

The only thing One Two can see that separates hospital from prison is that hospitals are usually desperate to get rid of you and prisons … aren't. One Two would prefer not to have to spend any time in either of them. He walked into this one though, and sat down, and he's stayed here all night. He yawns, and cracks his jaw, and wonders about getting up for a walk, but doesn't. 

Just in case.

Once the doctors figured out that One Two wasn't next-of-kin, out he went until visiting hours. But there are chairs in the sort of reception area, and so One Two figures he doesn't have to go anywhere, not until they make him or until he comes to his senses. He stretches out and tries to get a bit of a kip in, but the place bustles, people rushing in and rushing out and rushing around, and it's a losing battle that One Two gives up on after half an hour. Instead he just rests his head in his hands and tries to think. 

There's a thump as someone sits down next to him. 

'You're about as subtle as half a brick through a fuckin' windscreen,' Mumbles informs him. 'Where is he, then? Your boyfriend.'

'He's not my -' One Two starts, and then sighs, because Mumbles is giving him the same look he gives when One Two's trying to bluff at poker. 'He's through there. Visiting time is in - ' he checks his watch. 'About ten minutes.'

'How long you been here, then?'

'Since we brought him in.'

Mumbles's face is wise, and sarcastic, and he thinks One Two is an idiot. 'I called his mum,' Mumbles says. 'An' his uncle JD. They'll be comin' in to see him, right? So you -' and he pokes One Two in the chest, 'need to not fuck it up, yeah? They know who you are. Just take it easy.' He sighs. 'Cos if he's really not your … anything, then you're giving off some mixed signals, mate. Very mixed signals.'

One Two buries his face in his hands, raking his fingers through his hair and down. 'Christ. You're tellin' me,' he says.

'You know what they say. Keep calm and carry on, my old son,' Mumbles advises. 'Sort it out later, yeah? An' I do mean sort it out,' he adds, voice suddenly hardening. 'Because I am a patient man, Mister One Two, but you've been dickin' around for a while now. I told you ages ago, didn't I, that you and Bob needed to sort your shit. So fuckin' get it sorted, all right?'

There are footsteps on the hard flooring. One Two looks up to see Mumbles looking past him to the entranceway.

'Because other people might take it into their heads to sort it for you,' Mumbles adds in a low voice. And up sweeps Johnny Fucking Quid. 'I gotta take a slash,' Mumbles announces, and scarpers. 

'So here we are then,' says Johnny, plonking himself down. His coat flares out around him as he does it.

'Here we are,' says One Two, and only notices after he's looked down again that his fists are clenched. He unpeels them, and Johnny sees.

'We're all grownups here,' he says offhandedly, as if One Two hasn't seen him giggle like a schoolboy or snog like a teenager. And it isn't as if One Two would do anything, not with Archy looming in the corner like an old crow. 'Unless you wanna have a go over this?'

'I don't wanna have a go,' says One Two. 'If you're here to see Bob, you've still got five minutes to wait.'

'Suits me,' says Johnny. 'And I am here to see Bob, as it happens. But I'm glad I've caught you, One Two,' he adds in his sing-song smart-arse voice. 'It occurs to me we may have got off on the wrong foot over Bob, you see.'

One Two shrugs. 

'I want to be very clear with you, One Two,' says Johnny, folding his hands together. 'If you hurt him, if you mess him around any further -'

'He's not your daughter, Johnny, for Christ's sake,' One Two says. 'Are you threatening me, over my own best mate?'

'Yes,' says Johnny simply. 

'Then let me threaten you back, just so we're clear.' One Two takes a breath - Johnny puts up a hand to ward off Archy, who started moving on the word 'threaten'. 'From now on, you keep your hands off him, alright?'

Johnny grins. 'I think we're done here. Come on, Arch. Did you bring the grapes and flowers?'

***

After Johnny and Archy comes Bob's mum, Christine, and Bob's uncle JD and his cousin Eddy. JD gives One Two a filthy look - Eddy rolls his eyes at his father but doesn't even acknowledge One Two. Christine nods at him, pats him on the shoulder as she passes. She doesn't like what Bob does - but she knows he'd be in worse trouble if he was trying to make it on his own. 

'You can go in now,' says the nurse to One Two, once the family have gone. 'Thank you for waiting, sir. We don't like to crowd patients, you know.'

Bob's sitting up in bed, squinting at a dog-eared Robert Ludlum novel someone's given him.

'Alright, Bobby-boy?' One Two asks with a lump in his throat that feels like concrete. 

'You're here,' Bob says groggily.

'Of course I'm fuckin' here,' says One Two. In films, at this point, people go up and take the hurt person's hand. It even looks like a film, from the doorway - nicely-framed, with the window and the bed, perspective or some fucking thing, all lines off-square and drawing his eye in. In, to Bob. 

One Two stays in the doorway another thirty seconds before he realises he's still being a fucking idiot.

'They told me you came in with me,' says Bob carefully, putting the book down. 'In the ambulance.'

One Two plonks himself in the chair next to Bob's bed, and starts picking at the grapes someone's brought him. 'It was me or Johnny,' he says. 'And I -'

Bob closes his eyes briefly. 'Not this again,' he says. 

'Last time, I promise,' says One Two. 'Cards on the table.' He's clenched his fists again, in his lap. 

Bob's biting his lip. 'If you're gonna do this,' he says, before One Two can start, 'Just. One Two, please. Just be straight -' he winces, and One Two does as well. 'I mean, be honest with me, yeah?' Bob says, finishes. He looks little, in the paper gown and the green-white-grey bed, but he sounds big, and he sounds business-like, and maybe it's the lack of sleep, or the guilt, or the residual whatever from the fright One Two got seeing Bob lying like a dead man in a car accident, but One Two has to ask himself how he ever refused that, why he ever wanted to, why he ever thought that people saying shit could keep them apart. 

'I'm trying,' says One Two. 'I want to be. You just … you fuckin' give me the shits, Bob, you know that? You scare me. What you mean to me, it scares me.'

'No, I don't,' says Bob. 'You're scared of what people will say about us. You know the words, One Two, I know you do 'cos I heard you use 'em on me, remember? You don't wanna be a dirty bastard, you don't want people to call you a fag. And if you let yourself have what you want, now, that's what they'll call you. And that's what you're afraid of. This isn't about me, One Two. All your fucking problems are in your own fucking head.'

He looks so fierce, dog-on-a-chain dangerous. Stark and honest, like One Two doesn't know this all already.

'It's not about - about what we call it, or about what other people call … whatever it is we have, Bob, okay? And it's taken me a fuckin' long time to work that out, okay, but I did, so you don't get to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.' One Two knows damn well he shouldn't ought to be shouting at a man in a hospital bed. He drags a hard breath through his nose. 'I mean. Bob, it's about you and me. That's all it's ever been about.'

'Well, I'm fucked if I'll be your dirty little secret again, One Two,' says Bob, folding his arms across his paper-covered chest, like a prizefighter in a stupid costume. 'You can go to hell, if that's what you came in here to say to me.' He's biting his lip again, biting it white, and the corners of his mouth are trembling. 

One Two's fingernails are biting into the palms of his hands. 'Mumbles knows,' he says. 'And Johnny, and Archy. And I'll tell the rest of them the second we get out of here.' It's all he's got left. Last card, face up on the table, ready to be river-bitched if that's what it comes to.

Bob just stares. 'You what?'

'Fuck, do you want me to hire a fuckin' skywriter, Bob?' One Two buries his head in his hands. 'You and me. And if anyone says otherwise, well they can just -'

'I love you,' says Bob, in a whisper, like it hurts. 'Don't - don't sit there and tell me shit like that unless you can say it back.'

One Two's throat works, and nothing comes out.

Bob's face splinters into a bitter smile. 'I knew it.' He rolls over, awkwardly, in the sitting-up position the bed's in. 

'I do,' says One Two, feeling like he's clawing the words out. 'I love you.' Bob doesn't move. 'I fuckin' - will you look at me, Bob? Christ. I love you, alright. And it's your own fault, for makin' me think of it in the first place, and makin' me want it - makin' me want you like that, but fuck it, Bob, I have loved you all along, one way or another.' He's shouting again, he realises that too late when a nurse comes in and glares at him and pointedly shuts the door. 

Bob rolls over again, slowly, careful of the IV in his arm. He licks his lips, and huffs out a very shaky kind of a laugh, or a grunt, or something, and doesn't quite look at One Two, but he does ask, 'So ... you gonna stay?'

And One Two coughs. 'Yeah,' he says. 'Yeah. I guess I am.'


End file.
